Posted by nicole on 07/06/2006 3:02 pm

The following posting is from oceans campaigner John, who is onboard in the Bering Sea...

Among many other things, George (our lead oceans campaigner in Alaska) is a former Russian Orthodox Priest. Yesterday he invited Father Jonah Andrew of the Holy Ascension Orthodox Cathedral in Unalaska onboard to bless the boat. Father Jonah was joined in the conducting of the ceremony by George’s wife Leonella and Rufina Shiashnikoff, a powerful Aleut woman who I first met at our meeting with the community here last week.

After the blessing, Rufina spoke about her experience as a three-time cancer survivor. Two of the doctors that have helped her get through it all urged her to “eat the food of her ancestors.” Rufina said it has been a real struggle, because it’s no longer possible to eat many of the kinds of seafood and coastal vegetation her grandparents enjoyed. The wild beaches of her youth have been replaced by industrial fishing docks, and the marine life that she used to catch from shore has gone the way of “localized depletion.”

Craig-the-killer-whale-biologist and Dave-the-cook came on board in Dutch Harbor, and now we are en route to St. George Island, a 24-hour trip. The wind’s gusting to 35 knots, but it’s coming from behind us and so far the swells aren’t too bad. Early this morning, we had a pod of six or seven Dall’s porpoises riding our bow wave, looking a little like a miniature, more hyperactive version of the killer whales we’ll be studying for the next ten days.

There are two distinct types of killer whales in the North Pacific: transients, which feed primarily on marine mammals; and residents, which are largely fish eaters. The two populations share the same waters, but do not interbreed and are genetically distinct. This gives evolutionary biologists fits, because it looks like we are witnessing the divergence of killer whales into separate species without any geographic isolation or mutation to drive the split. Could this be the first known example of behavioral modification leading to speciation?

That’s just one of the questions we’re here to try to answer as we focus our attention on the transient killer whale population around the Pribilofs. We’ll take photos and record vocalizations to identify individuals, take tissue samples to provide information about genetics, contaminants, and diet, and, if we’re really lucky, attach satellite tags to allow us to track their movement.

How many fur seals and sea lions are killer whales eating? Is that contributing to the decline of these species? Or is the million and a half tons of groundfish we remove from the North Pacific each year causing fish-eating seals and sea lions to go hungry? Most indications point to the fishing industry, but in a system as vast and as complicated as this one, the only responsible thing to do is to err on the side of caution as we work to improve our understanding of what is really happening.

- John 

Posted by nicole on 07/06/2006 08:40 am

The following posting is from oceans campaigner John, who is onboard in the Bering Sea... 

In the middle of the darkest part of last night, we relied on the charts to get us through a particularly shallow channel.  According to the charts, there was a narrow pass where it looked like it would be just deep enough to accommodate our boat's 11 foot draft.  Willie and I were on the bridge sweating it out with Captain Bob as we all stared at the depth sounder, which reads the amount of water below the boat’s keel. 

We started out in plenty of water, and then watched it drop off steadily all the way down to zero.  Bob didn’t flinch, and after a few minutes of nail-biting the depth started to climb back up again. And then we continued on our way to Dutch Harbor, with the knowledge that we had a skipper who could make an awful lot out of a little luck.

After a few days of smooth sailing, today the odds caught up with us.  Cold, fog, swells…  It was probably not the roughest weather we’ll face on this expedition, but it was our first test so far and everybody came through in good shape.  In the past three days, I think we only saw one other boat, and only a couple more were even close enough to register on radar. 

For our team, coming from cities like Washington D.C., Austin, Tacoma, and Sidney, this was a kind of isolation few of us had ever experienced.  As we bounced around in the open ocean waves, we passed creatures who felt right at home – puffins bobbing in the waves, shearwaters swooping gracefully by, and humpback whales occasionally surfacing near the boat.  My favorite sighting of the day was a sleeping Steller sea lion, calmly floating on her back in the middle of the swells.

Now we’re finally arriving in Dutch Harbor, where we’ll pick up Craig and Dave and begin the first research leg of the tour: killer whale population ecology.

Wish us luck!

John H

Posted by nicole on 07/06/2006 08:36 am

The following posting is from Adam, who is onboard in the Bering Sea...

We're really in the heart of Aleut country now. Thick fog and a heavy swell today have made a marked difference to the sunny clear “whale-y” day we had yesterday (although I did spot one big whale fluke through the fog as it dove earlier on.)

It’s been a day of moving from hand-hold to hand-hold, making sandwiches instead of fancy meals. Peering out into the weather marveling at how the people of old didn’t die out from simply getting lost. I can only think that it was because they were still so closely linked to the ecosystem that they were part of, that they could read the water and the birds and the wind like a book.

It’s the modern day disconnect with nature that leads to the shortsighted devastation of life that we are here to try and help bring to an end I think. I really look forward to meeting the Aleut people that see this too, and forming a bond between us that can lead to a broad and comprehensive way of speaking to the problems that face them, and ultimately all of us. Problems that stem from the way this environment
(read resource) is managed.

We’re about 50nm from Unalaska and have just entered Unamak pass, the boat has leveled out a bit and we can get back to doing some normal things like writing blogs and doing chores. We’ve readied the RIBS
(rigid hulled inflatable boats) and all our other gear and cant wait to get the scientists onboard and get out there doing what we came to do!

Adam